REVIEW: HiWire’s DVB-H trial looks ready for prime time

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Yay or Nay, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week we’ll review a new wireless application or service from the user’s point of view, with the goal of highlighting what works and what doesn’t in the mobile content industry. If you wish to submit your application or service for review, please contact us at rcrwebhelp@crain.com.
Application: HiWire L.L.C.’s mobile broadcast TV service trial in Las Vegas.
Running on: LG U900, with service from T-Mobile USA Inc.
Yay: Impressive early look at what DVB-H can offer in the United States. Qualcomm’s MediaFLO USA Inc. appears to have a more than capable competitor on its hands.
Nay: Isn’t this just more of what I’m already paying for at home?
We say: This service is ready for primetime. HiWire’s offering is clean, crisp and does nothing to remind you it’s still in testing.
Aloha Partners’ HiWire has only been trialing its mobile broadcast TV service in Las Vegas for two months, but the service already looks ready for launch. It offers an extensive programming lineup of 24 channels from a variety of entertainment, news and network content providers. If you like news or stocks and bonds, they’ve got it; if you like women in bikinis, they’ve got that too.
Indeed, the two-tower HiWire network in Las Vegas features a channel lineup that outstretches MediaFLO’s commercially launched offering by a 3-to-1 ratio. Kudos to HiWire for pushing the envelope-that could very well be what differentiates the company from its counterpart in San Diego.
There’s plenty of room to be a standout in this evolving realm. Mobile television has blended a variety of interests, bringing some industries together for the first time. And though mobile TV doesn’t live up to the hype just yet, it is well on its way. The big networks are already thinking about mobile as a unique platform. They know it can’t simply be a regurgitation of traditional programming. But where is the new programming that will deliver on that logic?
Am I crazy for wanting something new from mobile TV?
Like most Americans, I already fork out some serious scratch every month for cable television at home. I don’t want to bring my at-home television with me at all times, nor do I want to see mobile TV try to compete with the more encompassing experience of watching TV or film at home. I want things I’ve never seen before, content I can’t find anywhere else. Astound me; make me want to come back for more. Isn’t that what good entertainment does? What good is a book if I’m not dying to reach the next page? If I’m not hoping for an encore at the end of a band’s set, that should tell you something.
With all that in mind-albeit with a big grain of salt and dose of reality-I put HiWire to the test.
While driving around Las Vegas with HiWire’s President and COO Scott Wills, I was able to compare the performance of HiWire and MediaFLO’s services in the heart of the city and its surrounding outskirts.
Both HiWire and MediaFLO’s networks use spectrum in the 700 MHz band, which is feted for its propagation characteristics and in-building penetration, and neither appeared to have a competitive edge indoors. HiWire and MediaFLO services suffered glitches in sync for the most part, sometimes one would glitch or recover before the other, but the cumulative test didn’t allow me to conclude one as superior to the other. One stark difference is that when the MediaFLO service freezes it doesn’t recover; to resume service the user is required to select the channel again.
Both services performed on par traveling at about 75 mph on Interstate 215. And neither service experienced any noticeable glitches on the Strip, even with the antennas down on both devices.
The MediaFLO service changes channels faster, tuning in at around two seconds compared to the four-to-five seconds between channels on HiWire. But MediaFLO’s service runs about five seconds behind HiWire, so perhaps that’s where the FLO technology is able to speed up the channel change.
And something is up with the colors or contrast. A dark blue on HiWire looks more like turquoise on MediaFLO. Perhaps that’s what makes the MediaFLO service appear brighter overall.
MediaFLO has only been out to market for about six months and HiWire hasn’t tested its network on more than 200 people at a time. There are still many strides for both companies to make in the mobile TV space; however both should be recognized for the appetites they’ve stoked in such a short period of time.
Americans love their TV if nothing else; failure in this medium is just impossible to fathom.